2020 WINTER SERIES Ep 9: Selina Tusitala Marsh, Cass Sunstein, Samantha Power

2020 WINTER SERIES Ep 9: Selina Tusitala Marsh, Cass Sunstein, Samantha Power

Author: Auckland Writers Festival June 28, 2020 Duration: 1:08:19
The Auckland Writers Festival 13-week WINTER SERIES streamed live and free every Sunday morning from 3 May - 26 July 2020. Episode 9 features: SELINA TUSITALA MARSH (Aotearoa New Zealand) Former Poet Laureate, performer and teacher Selina Tusitala Marsh has published three collections of poetry, including the 2010 Best First Book Award winner 'Fast Talking PI', and the 2018 Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted 'Tightrope'. Her latest book is the inspirational graphic memoir 'Mophead' which she also illustrated. It tells the true story of a New Zealand woman realising how her difference can make a difference. CASS SUNSTEIN (United States) Cass Sunstein is a Harvard Law School professor and served in the Obama administration. His latest book 'How Change Happens', looks at how, when and why, social movements such as #metoo and nationalism suddenly take off. He co-wrote the influential 'Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness', a revelatory examination of how people make decisions and how governments might persuade their citizens to act in socially beneficial ways while curbing government over-reaching, and the very timely 'Impeachment: A Citizen’s Guide'. SAMANTHA POWER (Ireland / United States) Pulitzer Prize-winning author, diplomat and war correspondent Samantha Power served in the Obama administration and as US ambassador to the UN. Twice named as one of Time’s ‘100 Most Influential People’, her best-selling memoir 'The Education of an Idealist', is a unique blend of expert storytelling and shrewd political insight, tracing her distinctly American journey from immigrant to war correspondent to presidential cabinet official. At a time of upheaval and division, Power’s memoir – named one of the best books of 2019 by The New York Times and The Economist – offers an urgent response to the question “What can one person do?” HOST: PAULA MORRIS (Aotearoa New Zealand) Paula Morris (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Whātua) is an award-winning fiction writer and essayist. The 2019 Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellow, she teaches creative writing at The University of Auckland, sits on the Māori Literature Trust and is the founder of the Academy of NZ Literature. This series provides an opportunity to champion New Zealand and international books that were to feature at our cancelled May Festival, we encourage you to support writers and NZ publishers and booksellers by purchasing featured books. Order via our Festival bookseller. #awfwinterseries

The Auckland Writers Festival podcast is a direct line to the stages and conversations of one of the Southern Hemisphere's most vibrant literary events. This audio archive captures the live, unscripted energy of festival sessions, bringing the voices of the world's most compelling authors, thinkers, and poets directly to you. Each episode is a deep dive into the ideas shaping our world, from intimate interviews on the craft of writing to expansive panel discussions on history, politics, science, and culture. You'll hear novelists dissect their characters, historians trace forgotten narratives, and poets articulate the ineffable, all within the unique atmosphere of a live audience. This isn't a produced studio show; it's the sound of intellectual discovery and passionate debate happening in real time. The collection serves as a lasting resource, preserving the festival's dynamic spirit long after the final applause. For anyone who believes in the power of stories to challenge and connect us, this podcast offers a front-row seat to a celebration of words and the people who wield them with extraordinary skill. Tune in to be reminded of why literature matters.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Auckland Writers Festival
Podcast Episodes
PASIFIKA MARAMA QAQA: AVIA, MARSH, MILA (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:44
Oceanic women have always been creators – weaving lives into pandanus mats, printing knowledge onto masi and tapa, bearing tatau memory on skin, weaving words in boundless talanoa. A triumph of preeminent Pasifika women…
THE SHAPE WE'RE IN: STEPHANIE JOHNSON (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 42:03
THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND FREE LECTURE Twenty-two years ago the Auckland Writers Festival burst into literary life, propelled by the ambitious advocacy of writers Stephanie Johnson and the late Peter Wells who wanted to…
THE 33: ANNE KENNEDY & SARAH WATKINS (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:37
A heartfelt artistic collaboration, The 33, brings together award-winning poet Anne Kennedy and leading New Zealand pianist and Juilliard graduate Sarah Watkins in a tribute to life, grief, writing and music. In 1973, af…
SPEAKERS' CORNER: THE CRIME OF ADOPTION (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:19
Writer and filmmaker Barbara Sumner, author of 'Tree of Strangers', argues that adoption laws, which continue to deny adopted people access to their own information, treat mothers as dispensable and children as interchan…
CROSSING THE LINES: BRENT COUTTS (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:17
Ordinary men living through extraordinary times, New Zealand soldiers Harold Robinson, Ralph Dyer and Douglas Morison shared a queer identity and a love of performance, living as gay men within the military forces during…
FALE AITU: KIGHTLEY & RODGER (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:26
Many ancestral currents, past and present, carried Pasifika peoples from Te-Moana-Nui-a-Kiwa to Aotearoa. Whilst each Pacific identity is unique, experiences of migration, colonialism, and courage are shared, and vividly…
SPEAKERS' CORNER: BEING MALE (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:33
Lawyer and writer Brannavan Gnanalingam is the author of the Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted 'Sprigs', a searing interrogation of sexual assault and masculinity. He argues that current cultural norms about being male c…
SPEAKERS' CORNER: THIS PĀHEHĀ LIFE (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 32:32
In the Ockham NZ Book Awards shortlisted 'This Pākehā Life: An Unsettled Memoir', Alison Jones contests that being Pākehā requires us to live in a state of “permanently lively discomfort with no single resolution...”, a…
NGĀ ORO HOU THE NEW VIBRATIONS (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:05
An exceptional evening performance brings together celebrated writers and taonga pūoro practitioners in a lyrical weaving of language and song. Arihia Latham, Anahera Gildea, Becky Manawatu, essa may ranapiri and Tusiata…
FAMILY DYNAMICS: O'BRIEN, GRIMSHAW, MEWBURN (2021) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:34
Writing an honest and deeply personal memoir takes a certain degree of courage, and the journey can be fraught. In Lil O’Brien’s 'Not That I’d Kiss a Girl', she movingly recounts the fallout from her parents’ accidental…